


The Pavarotti Pavlovian

by nightbirdrises



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2294681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbirdrises/pseuds/nightbirdrises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pav·lo·vi·an conditioning (n.): A process of behavior modification by which a subject comes to respond in a desired manner to a previously neutral stimulus that has been repeatedly presented along with an unconditioned stimulus that elicits the desired response.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pavarotti Pavlovian

**Author's Note:**

> a.k.a. how in the world does bird talk turn Blaine on? This ventures into crack fic territory, but I had fun with it. Originally posted to [tumblr](http://princehummel.tumblr.com/post/90996938136)

"Do we need a code word? I feel like we need a code word."

Blaine looks up from his homework, frowning slightly. “A code word for what?”

Kurt blushes, obviously a bit uncomfortable, but he plows on - something he’s been doing more and more of lately. “For when we’re in public, with friends or whatever, and we want to… you know.”

"I can’t say I do."

"Making out," Kurt says, rushed. Blaine sits up on the bed and crosses his legs, figuring he should probably give Kurt his full attention for this. Kurt gets up from his chair and moves to the bed, a questioning, nervous look in his eyes that Blaine returns with a warm smile and a pat on the space in front of him. Visibly relieved, Kurt sits there, legs tucked underneath him.

"So," Blaine starts, "you want a code word for when we want to make out."

"Does that sound crazy?" Blaine shakes his head, but Kurt continues. "It’s just that, sometimes, when we’re with the Warblers or other people, all I want to do is— is kiss you." Kurt huffs, ducking his head as he hides a sheepish smile. "I don’t know how to tell you that when we’re surrounded, though. Even if our friends  _do_  mean well.”

"No, I get it," Blaine reassures him. "A code word sounds like fun, anyway. We’ll be like spies. Gay, h—" Blaine stops himself from saying "horny," knowing it’ll fluster Kurt and make him change the subject. Besides, it’s a little too soon to think of… all that the word implies, even for him. It’s only been two weeks, after all. "—hot spies."

"Nice save," Kurt says, with a look that tells him he  _knows_. And Blaine grins, just because he can never expect the expected from Kurt. Maybe they can’t say it out loud yet, but they can think it. Just the fact that Kurt’s thinking it without flinching from the thought or judging Blaine (too much) for it is a step up from Kurt avoiding the topic entirely.

Clearing his throat, Blaine says, “Shall we pick a code word, then?”

"Yes. It needs to be something that people won’t notice after a while, though," Kurt says, sitting up straight as he thinks, his hands on his knees. "But something we can both recognize as a code."

"Something that’s just for us," Blaine adds, "and that your McKinley friends won’t get either, since I know you want to hang out with them more often." Kurt looks a little sad at this, shrugging, but his expression clears up before Blaine can do anything about it.

"Let’s start with how we got together… except it’s a little morbid, isn’t it?"

"A bird died, you mourned him with a song that just happened to make me realize how into you I am, and I kissed you for the first time beside the bird’s half-decorated casket." Blaine frowns. "It could be worse?"

"So a bird’s untimely end brought us together. That’ll be one to tell our—" Kurt freezes, eyes wide, and backtracks. "Uh, so a bird. Is there anything we could use in that?"

"Bird names?" Blaine suggests. Kurt tilts his head. "Like… canary. Robin. Chickadee." A smile grows on Kurt’s lips, the one that speaks of silly mischief. Blaine smiles back - it’s kind of ridiculous, but it’s very much  _them_ , right?

"As long as you never use blue-footed booby, I’m in," Kurt says, attempting to sound serious but failing. Blaine scrunches his nose.

"Of course not."

Kurt hums happily, relaxed and loose in that way he often isn’t. He looks at Blaine’s homework, left sitting half-finished on the bed near Blaine, and bites his lip as he glances back up to his boyfriend. “Parakeet?”

It takes a moment for him to get it, but then Blaine’s shoving his homework aside and kissing Kurt, palm curved against his jaw as he listens to Kurt’s sharp intake of breath. It’s a little strange, Blaine has to admit, but it’s kind of like a game for them, something secret and shared - one of the first things that’s  _theirs_  - so Blaine is perfectly happy with a bit of bird talk if it leads to this.

All too soon, they have no choice but to stop and cool down, Kurt’s cheeks flushed bright and his shirt wrinkled as he clears his throat and hands Blaine’s homework back to him.

"Birds it is, then," he says with finality. Blaine looks at him, an eyebrow raised, until they both begin to crack up despite being breathless already from making out. "Oh god, we’re crazy. We’re the weirdest couple in the world."

"No, we’re the best," Blaine says after he calms down somewhat. "I think all the best things are a little bit weird."

"I’ll try to remember that if anyone finds out about this and makes fun of us for the rest of our lives."

"…Okay, so we’ll be careful." Kurt rolls his eyes and leans in to give Blaine a peck on the lips, slightly hesitant out of being unused to such casual intimacy. Blaine welcomes the effort and can’t help but imagine, one day, kisses like that as they leave for work - short, but a perfect, sweetly domestic way to part.

"I should study, too," Kurt muses as Blaine starts working again.

"I know that’s your code word for surfing the Internet," Blaine says without looking up. "But I won’t judge."

"Good."

About an hour later, Blaine comes across the word “hawk” in his textbook and can’t resist the opportunity. Luckily for him, Kurt has no qualms about it, and they end up making out for longer than they managed to study.

The habit probably won’t stick - but Blaine is totally going to enjoy it while he can.

 

* * *

 

Once they start having sex, Blaine has to wonder if it’s getting a little out of hand.

Before that fateful night, their code had just begun to affect him. It wasn’t anything major - just a slight giddy feeling when Kurt decided to make use of it, the bird name usually paired with a significant look (and Kurt’s getting much better at sensual faces, Blaine’s happy to observe). He figured it was just a normal reaction; after all, the prospect of making out with Kurt makes him pretty giddy no matter how it’s presented.

However, his reactions are starting to get a little more…  _physical_. He doesn’t dare mention to Kurt how heat pulses, gentle and insistent, through him when Kurt utilizes the code. That’s entering the realm of really, really weird and he’s not sure how Kurt would respond.

It doesn’t help at all when the club discusses doing Peacock by Katy Perry for a performance. On one hand, he’s all for more Katy Perry. On the other… the song is already suggestive enough without having to listen to Kurt sing the lyrics to him, playfully, over and over again.

"What’s up?" Kurt asks when Blaine hasn’t responded (aside from the occasional noncommittal grunt).

"Nothing," Blaine says, smiling in a poor attempt at throwing Kurt off the scent of ‘something’s wrong.’ Kurt’s smile falters, and Blaine almost spills it right there in the choir room because he doesn’t want Kurt to think it’s anything  _bad_. 

"You know you can tell me anything, right?" Kurt says, low so their friends can’t hear him. Not that they’re paying any attention. "Wait, were you the one that ate the last piece of cheesecake in the fridge?"

"It’s not… well, yeah, I did eat it," Blaine says sheepishly. Kurt narrows his eyes; maybe he should just take Kurt’s wrath regarding the cheesecake since it seems to be distracting him. But Kurt’s right - Blaine should be able to tell him anything, even the weird stuff that might make Kurt not talk to him ever again. "But there’s something else, I just—"

"Blaine, Kurt, why don’t you two converse with the group instead of only with each other?" Mr. Schuester says out of nowhere, to Blaine’s (guilty) relief. 

"We’re working out a dance routine," Kurt says without hesitation. He smiles innocently at their teacher and touches Blaine’s shoulder. "Because, believe it or not—" Kurt shoots a glare at Mike, who frowns, confused. "—I have more than jazz hands and shimmies in my repertoire."

"Great!" Schuester claps his hands together, either unaware of the exchange or choosing to ignore it. Blaine hasn’t yet figured out which is more commonly the case. "Why don’t you show us what you’ve got?"

"I really don’t think—" Blaine glances around; everyone’s looking at him and Kurt expectantly. He clears his throat and speaks a little louder, using the ‘leader voice’ he perfected while he was with the Warblers. "We’re still working out the kinks."

"Oh, I bet you are," Santana says, smirking, and he really should have chosen his words better. Kinks, though… does he have a bird kink? Is that what this would be called? They haven’t even done much that’s out of the ordinary yet and he already has a weird kink. Great.

"Dude, are you okay?" Finn asks nervously. "You look kind of pale."

"Go to the nurse," Puck suggests. "Tell her you’re clinically depressed or something and you need a nap, maybe a little something extra to help you sleep. Works every time."

"That’s out of line and you need to stop contributing," Quinn tells Puck, who rolls his eyes. She turns to Blaine. "He’s kind of right, though. Maybe you need a break?"

"You can’t seriously still be tired from Friday night, bro," Sam says. "He stayed over," he informs the rest of the room, to Blaine’s sudden horror.

"What did they do Friday night?" 

"Details!"

"This is too good."

Kurt has long since hidden his face in his hands; what little of it Blaine can see is tinged pink. He decides it’s time to put a stop to this. “Come on, nothing happened that would interest any of you.”

"Did you and Kurt make baby rainbows together?"

"No, Brittany."

"I told ‘em I was gonna be at Artie’s place to play video games and I left, but I went back because I had the date backwards, or something. All night," Sam says, eyes wide, earnest in a way that Blaine’s just a little bit concerned about. "Don’t look at me like that, man, it was impressive."

"You  _listened_ —” Kurt starts, but Blaine touches his knee, heading him off.

"We’re not talking about this," Blaine says, looking at each of them in turn. "And we’re not dancing." Not to  _that_  song, anyway. Far more embarrassing things could easily happen that way, he’s sure of it.

"Thank you, Blaine," Mr. Schuester says, finally cutting in after everyone has stopped talking. Blaine simply nods. "Let’s get back on track, guys."

"Five minutes," Kurt whispers, tilting his head towards the clock. "Stay back and talk?" _Damn it_.

"Deal," Blaine whispers back, grudgingly.

The next five minutes pass quickly enough - the New Directions are plenty entertaining, so the hour always tends to go by faster than Blaine expects it to. The bell rings and everyone starts packing up, Kurt included, so Blaine follows his lead, wondering if they’re going somewhere else to talk.

As it turns out, Kurt’s just bluffing so no one tries to listen in; he moves slowly, Blaine mirroring him, until they’re only halfway to the door when the group has left. Kurt goes to close it and turns around, gesturing to the piano. Blaine sits on the piano bench as requested and Kurt sits next to him, smiling.

"So, you had something to tell me?"

"Yeah," Blaine says, nodding. "It’s nothing bad, I promise, it’s just… weird?"

"Weird?"

"Like… me getting, you know, turned on by something that probably shouldn’t turn anyone on. That kind of weird." Kurt furrows his brows; Blaine imagines he can see the gears in his head turning, trying to figure out where he’s going with this.

"It can’t be  _that_  crazy,” Kurt says after a minute.

"Birds, Kurt." Kurt huffs, annoyed.

"Not now, Blaine—"

"No, no, I don’t mean  _that_ ,” Blaine says hurriedly. “It’s just that, that code we use, I think it’s starting to affect me. In a below-the-equator way.”

"Oh."

"You’re free to run away screaming now, if you want." Kurt’s slightly dumbfounded expression melts away as he scoffs.

"Honey, you’re being dramatic. Sure, it’s an… interesting development, but it’s not like I’m going to judge you for it, much less run away screaming. I have a voice to maintain, you know, and running in these pants is physically impossible."

"So you’re not weirded out at all?"

"Oh, I’m weirded out. But only a little bit. There are worse things to get turned on by, and at least this makes some kind of sense."

Blaine smiles, mollified. “Good. For the record, I’m a little weirded out too.”

"Does this mean we should stop using the code?" Kurt asks, biting his lip. "Should we come up with a new one?" Blaine shakes his head.

"My limit on weird things turning me on is one," he says. "And I don’t see why we  _have_  to stop…”

"Blaine Anderson, you  _like_  it, don’t you?” Kurt says, grinning. “You like that I can say something totally innocent to everyone but us, and you’ll just…”

"…desperately need to find a way to be alone with you, yeah," Blaine finishes. "Something like that."

Kurt bites his lip, contemplating… something. Blaine’s a little bit apprehensive - but Kurt’s ideas usually turn out to be good ones. Except for the time he wanted to test his theory that feeding glitter to doves would result in anything other than disaster. Luckily, Blaine had stopped him before any innocent animals were harmed or people glitter-pooped on. There was also the time he tried to eat two whole cheesecakes in one sitting. And the time—

So maybe Kurt has had a few questionable ideas. But if he’s thinking what Blaine is thinking, there’s no way in hell this particular idea will be one of them.

"Hey," Kurt says, breaking Blaine’s thoughts as he stands up, turning to start towards the door. "Woodpecker."

"What—" Blaine gets up to follow him immediately, jogging to catch up as heat sparks low in his belly - it’s still kind of embarrassing. "Is that an innuendo?"

Kurt simply winks at him, opening the door and allowing Blaine through first. But then he’s clearly unsure when he says, “Too cheesy and/or weird?”

"I don’t think we have a limit for either cheesiness or weirdness at this point," Blaine says. "Where are we going? Your place?"

"No, Finn’ll be almost home by now and, if I remember correctly, you said your parents are home early all week." Blaine groans, suddenly remembering this very inconvenient detail. "We would’ve stayed in the choir room, but I know that Sue has it bugged and I don’t need her on our case. We’re going to your car."

"Why not  _your_  car?”

"Because we are not getting my baby messy, not after Dad finally gave her back to me." Blaine barely keeps from rolling his eyes fondly - apparently the Navigator had been a gift for Kurt’s sixteenth birthday, but he had it taken away for some reason. Blaine makes a mental note to ask about that reason (he’ll probably forget). The point is, Kurt loves the car like he loves his collection of designer boots, perhaps even more.

"Okay, so we’ll get my car messy instead." Kurt raises an eyebrow at him.

"Do you want to get laid or not?"

Blaine huffs. “Fine. But only because you’re manipulating my libido.”

"Oh, honey. If you don’t think I’m going to take full advantage of your weirdness, then you don’t know me very well."

They rush out to the parking lot and Blaine pinpoints his car - thankfully, most of the lot is empty and there seems to be little chance of being seen. He unlocks it with a  _beep beep_ sound that makes them both look around warily, mindful of where they actually are, but then Blaine’s scrambling backwards into the back seat, watching as Kurt climbs in after him.

"Wait," Kurt says suddenly, pausing with one foot in the car.

"Huh?"

"Are you absolutely sure you’re okay with me exploiting this little… quirk of yours?"

"I think the word you’re looking for here is ‘kink,’" Blaine says; Kurt bites his lip, his cheeks going pink. "But I’m fine, honestly. If it has to be a thing, why not?"

"Okay, but if you ever change your mind—"

"I’ll let you know immediately." Blaine smiles as Kurt finally starts getting the rest of his body in the car. "I promise."

"Just one thing," Kurt says, reaching back to shut the door before covering Blaine’s body with his own, a bit awkwardly due to the limited amount of space. "Don’t expect me to talk birds at you while we’re actually doing it. That’s venturing into questionable territory."

"No, yeah, of course not," Blaine says hurriedly, wishing Kurt would just kiss him already. Maybe the whole bird thing started this, but now Kurt is just so close that that alone is driving him crazy. " _Kurt_.”

"You keep lube in here, right?"

"Yeah," Blaine breathes out, about ready to tug Kurt down for a kiss and screw all conversation. "Glove compartment, there are condoms too."

"Thank god for your slightly over-the-top preparedness," Kurt mutters, actually moving _away_  to get it; Blaine almost whines.

"Where else would I put it?"

"Well, I don’t have a whole lot of real-world experience, but I’m assuming that people tend to keep this kind of stuff in the bedroom," Kurt says, smiling at him. "Not that I’m complaining."

"I thought we were just gonna…" Blaine gestures between them, the words still awkward on his tongue. Kurt leans down, kisses him, finally, it feels like he’s been waiting weeks for this - but then it’s over, Kurt working as quickly as he can to undo Blaine’s pants.

"I want to try riding you," Kurt explains; Blaine stares at him. "The space might be an issue, but we’ll make it work."

"God, how did I get this lucky?" Blaine asks himself - how did he end up with such a sweet, understanding, and dazzlingly attractive boyfriend? Kurt pauses to look at him, grinning.

"I believe it had something to do with a bird, funnily enough."

"In that case, I owe Pav, like, a hundred pounds of… whatever canaries like to eat."

"Oh my god. You were taking care of him before me, no wonder he bit the dust."

"Kurt, come on, can’t we talk about this later?"

"Oh, right," Kurt says, as if just remembering that they’re in the middle of something very important. He gets back to work on Blaine’s pants, says, once they’re out of the way, "I love you, you know. Weird stuff included."

Blaine breaks from his haze of too-turned-on-to-think to smile and pull Kurt in for a sweet, brief kiss. “I love you, too. But I think it’s your turn to admit something like that.”

Kurt’s already flushed from their activity up to this point but Blaine can tell there’s _something_  in the way his eyes widen as he hesitates. “Well—”

"You don’t have to," Blaine says, beginning to unbutton Kurt’s shirt, thankful that he’d forgone most of his layers today. But Kurt leans in close, whispers, "You know how frat boys talk, right?"

Needless to say, Blaine quickly becomes very glad that they’ve had this conversation.

 

* * *

 

What with the break-up interrupting their relationship and their friends maturing as they move on to life beyond high school, their code quickly falls out of regular use. It becomes more of a silly relic of their early relationship than anything else, and though there’s still a twinge of heat when Kurt brings it back up, Blaine is, more or less, recovering from the unintentional conditioning that the code provided.

By the time Blaine moves in with Kurt, he has all but forgotten about it. By the time they decide to live in separate places for the time being, he hasn’t thought of it in weeks - after all, there had been no need for a code when they spent the vast majority of every day together.

Frankly, Blaine’s relieved. It’s a miracle that none of their friends (or, even more thankfully, their family) managed to figure them out; now that it’s mostly a thing of the past, he doesn’t have any reason to worry about it.

He turns out to be dead wrong on that count.

"Feathers," Santana says, arms crossed as she looks at Kurt and Blaine, who are wrapped up in a single blanket on the couch and attempting to watch some reality TV. She’s been back in town ever since Rachel’s opening night and, to Kurt’s occasional dismay, shows no signs of leaving. "Care to explain, rainbow twins?"

"I have no idea what you’re talking about," Kurt says, clearly irritated by her presence. "If you’re not going to watch TV with us, then leave us alone."

"I’ll admit that I expected to see a dildo or ten just now when I went into your room to find the eyeliner I never got back after Blarney’s NYADA audition, and I wouldn’t have said a word about it if I did," she continues, ignoring him. Blaine only half-listens; Kurt’s much better at dealing with her. "But no. Instead I saw feathers on your bed, and I’m wondering if you two watched that video of the guy getting off with one of those and thought—"

"Oh my god, Santana. We had a pillow fight and one of the pillows broke, that’s it. Happy?"

"You’ve seen it, right?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t, and I don’t want to."

"Blanderson?"

"I might have stumbled across it," he admits without looking at either of them.

"See, he understands where I’m coming from. Hey," Santana says, cutting off Kurt’s indignant noise, "I’m just glad you two don’t have some kind of crazy bird fetish." Blaine swallows, keenly aware of Kurt glancing at him. Obviously they’re too quiet for Santana’s taste; she narrows her eyes. "You’re hiding something."

"No we’re not," Blaine says way too quickly. Kurt rolls his eyes.

"You  _do_  have a bird thing!” She grins, wicked and like she has just hit the jackpot. And, well, she sort of has. “I knew you guys had some kind of fucked-up kink; I was starting to think your exhibitionism streak was as bad as it got.”

"It’s not like that," Kurt says with a sigh. Blaine continues to stare at the TV, his face too warm for comfort. "There was a code—"

"Oh no, I’m not interested in  _how_  this happened,” Santana says. Blaine’s starting to wonder how many times she can interrupt Kurt before he literally explodes. “I just want to make sure you’re being safe when you’re shoving birds up each other’s—”

"Santana!" Kurt squeaks, utterly scandalized at this point. Blaine covers his face with both hands, desperately wishing he could disappear. "What we do doesn’t ever concern you, but we don’t, I mean, it’s disturbing enough that you would even imagine…"

Santana holds her hands up defensively, still grinning. “Relax, I was kidding. I should warn you, though, that I’ll be telling the Twitterverse about this.”

"You’re evil," Blaine mumbles into his hands.

"Oh, I’m touched," Santana says, winking at him. "See you later, feather freaks."

"Honey, I’m sorry," Kurt starts a few minutes later, but Blaine shakes his head.

"This never happened," Blaine says. "Let’s just watch our show, okay?"

"Okay." Kurt’s uncharacteristically quiet for the next five minutes, however, so Blaine waits apprehensively for him to say what’s on his mind. He doesn’t have to wait long. "You don’t _actually_  want to put a bird in my—”

"Jesus, Kurt!"

"I’m just asking! No judgment!" Blaine looks at him, incredulous. "Alright, maybe there’d be a bit of judgment."

"I love you, but please don’t ever mention this again."

"Okay, fine, agreed." Blaine leans over to kiss his cheek.

"Thank you." Kurt smiles, then bites his lip.

"So, about this video…"

 

* * *

 

When they find themselves on the staircase outside Mercedes’ apartment, they’ve pretty much grown out of the code entirely. That’s not to mention that the mental image that Santana presented was enough to break Blaine’s conditioning for the most part - thinking of it just brings that particular horrifying encounter back.

Still, all the talk of flying and birds and the pigeons pecking about in front of them reminds Blaine of it, of the weird little  _thing_  they had that was regardless something they shared, of a few of their most boundary-pushing moments of intimacy that happened to start with it just because of the trust they had in each other not to be  _too_  judgmental - Blaine knows by now that Kurt has his own questionable tastes, after all. And, though he really isn’t turned on by the talk itself, it’s the memories that prompt him to bring it up just this once, and Kurt takes it in perfect stride.

(When Kurt suggests having live, non-glitter-fed doves at their wedding a few months later and insists it’s about aesthetics and not a symbol of the way their relationship began and progressed, Blaine just rolls his eyes and kisses him, saying he’s adorable, but no.)


End file.
